Funding is requested for an amino acid analyzer to provide analyses for some fifteen documented biomedical research programs currently being funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). These programs cover a wide range of disciplines including Genetics, Biochemistry, Cell Biology, Pathology, Microbiology, and Tumor Biology Funded projects include programs directed at structural characterization of a number of biologically important proteins such as: human fibronectin, human nonsuppressible insulin-like protein, Salmonella toxin, metabolic enzymes of cataractous lenses, immune interferon, endorphin-like peptides, leukocytic endogenous mediator, human nerve growth factor, and chick erythroid cell antigens. The requested analyzer is required to replace the recent loss of two analyzers due to faculty relocation and instrument retirement. Moreover, the number of programs at UTMB requiring amino acid analysis has grown significantly. The analyzer will be housed in a centralized Protein Chemistry Laboratory. This laboratory has an established record of shared instrumentation usage and has an ongoing administrative mechanism for dealing with shared costs. An Advisory Committee responsible to the Dean of the Graduate School will assist the Principal Investigator in providing continued administrative and scientific review of the operation of the analyzer for the duration of its useful life. Continued financial support of the analyzer will be achieved using a charge-back policy.